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7 



THE IMMORALITIES 



RELIGIOUS CEIT1CISM ; 

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE 
"ECLECTIC REVIEW." 




HENKY DUNN, 



LONDON : 

SIHPKLN, MARSHALL, AND CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT. 
Price Sixpence. 

1 8CC, 



2 5 % 



y^ 



The Book to which the following Letter refers is entitled " Orga- 
nized Christianity : — Is it of Man or of God ? " By the author 
of "The Destiny of the Human Piace," and consists of 194 pp. 
post Svo. The Publishers are Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., Stationers' 
Hall-court, London. It may he had for a Shilling, of any Book- 
seller in Town or Country. 



A LETTER, &c. 

Sib, 

It lias sometimes been questioned whether or 
no, on the whole, our so-called religious periodicals do 
more good or harm to the cause they are intended to 
promote. Few, I suppose, will dispute that they must 
be injurious rather than beneficial whenever they be- 
come remarkable by the absence of such essentially 
Christian characteristics as justice, candour, and truth. 
Yet this is the present condition of the " Eclectic 
Review." 

The particular article* which has called forth this 
letter is, in every way, a singular one. I scarcely 
know what terms to use in characterizing its asser- 
tions. Were I to speak of them merely as misre- 
presentations, the real character of the passages to which 
I am about to refer would not be fairly expressed, for 
they are much more than this. If I call them false- 
hoods I use a word which is, I know, justly regarded as 
offensive. I am, however, compelled to do so. By no 
other name is it possible rightly to designate state- 
ments which are (I say it without attributing any 
evil motive), both in letter and in spirit, utterly and 
absolutely untrue. 

I cannot render these misstatements more obvious 
than by placing together in each case, as I now proceed 
to do, the Falsehood and the Fact, — your random asser- 
tion, and the voice of the book itself. 



" A Plea for the Disorganization of Christianity." Art. vii. Nov. 1866 



« The random assertion : — 

"The writer would have all churches broken up, dissolved and scat- 
tered, and individualism solitary and alone exercise its influence." — 
(E. R. p. 439.) 

The voice of the book : — 

"It is every way most undesirable to become isolated, and by 
any step, howevever conscientiously it may be taken, to disable 
ourselves from acting with bodies of Christian men, whom we cannot 
but love."— (0. C. t p. 167.) 

" True Christian communion is one of the most pressing wants of 
the human spirit. We all need to be refreshed and enriched by 
others — to be quickened by something that is not within ourselves. 
Heart must act on heart, and life on life. The religious poor espe- 
cially need spiritual sympathy to make up for the want of that ordi- 
nary intercourse with educated Christians which is hindered by the 
artificial distinctions of civilized life. In a true Church-life alone 
can this be had ; for, as it has been truly observed, "the Christian 
belongs to a kingdom in which there is nothing unrelated. There no 
man liveth and no man dieth to himself." — (0. C, p. 100.) 

" Surely we have our model, if anywhere, in the Primitive Church 
— established, as it was, by inspired men, and declared to be ' the 
body of Christ,' the ' communion of saints,' the ' light of the 
world,' the witness-bearing society, distinguished chiefly by its 
meekness and patience, its purity and brotherly love. Here we come, 
I imagine, as near to the beau ideal of the Church in all ages as we 
are likely to do, and have little more to learn as to its teaching and 
government than is presented to us in Scripture." — (0. C, p. 113.) 

' ' National as well as voluntary churches have each achieved the 
ends for which they were adapted ; every sect and party without 
exception has, in its degree, helped to elevate public opinion, to im- 
prove the condition of humanity, to dignify life, to repress crime, 
and to promote virtue." — (0. C, p. 40.) 

In addition to the foregoing, an entire chapter (viii.) 
is devoted to " the Ministry of the Church." 

The random assertion : — 

" It (Organized Christianity) is a plea for reducing Church life, 
not only to the merest minimum of communion, but a communion 
in which all the members shall hww each other's individuality, 
and find that individuality shaped exactly to the same narrow pattern 
of idea and experience."- — (E. R., p. 439.) 



The voice of the book : — 

" To attempt to base (Communion) on common opinions is 
absurd ; to regard it as consisting in the recital of experiences, or 
as developing itself under regulations of a more or less inquisitorial 
kind, is to mistake altogether its true character." — (0. C, p. 107.) 

"The very attempt to give evidence to others of spiritual life 
leads, almost of necessity, to a constraint and self-consciousness 
which is anything but wholesome ; it occasions danger, were it 
only from the fact that a candidate for admission almost always 
imagines that a certain standard of feeling must be maintained 
whether natural or not ; that wherever there is stimulus or pressure 
there is sure to be collapse ; and that whatever lays stress on a 
particular order of thought and feeling ' casts the heart too much on 
itself,'' and in so doing leads it away from Christ. 

" Nor is this all. Any attempt to be spiritual up to a certain stan- 
dard, supposed to be attained by a given religious body, endangers 
sincerity and promotes doubt. Artificial stimulants are in such a 
case almost always employed, and the result, even when there is no 
hypocrisy, is to produce a state of mind under which the soul 
narrows and withers." — (0. C, pp. 120 — I.) 

" Our spiritual life is to be quickened and strengthened by inter- 
course with those who are better and stronger than ourselves, while 
we in turn are to render to fellow- Christians, and especially to the 
young and inexperienced, all that help, both material and moral, 
which is implied in the apostolic command, ' Bear ye one another's 
burdens.' "— (0. C, p. 100.) 

The random assertion : — 

" What will our author s sect be but a narrow Pharasaic cluster 
of people, with heads erect in spiritual pride, affecting pity, and 
feeling real indifference to the perishing world without the little 
sect or sects he would create ?" — (E. B., p. 443.) 

The voice of the book : — 

"'It is a mercy for which we can never be too thankful that sepa- 
rations, as such, can never be more than partial, and rarely other 
than sectarian ; that individualism, however valuable in correcting 
popular opinions, or in laying bare cherished evils, can build no 
temple to its own glory, or sever Christian from Christian without 
finding its punishment in its sin." — (0. C, p. 191.) 

" Perhaps all that can be done at present is to endeavour to ex- 
cite a willingness to investigate ; to enkindle, if it be possible, a 
disposition to inquire, not for what may be considered as most expe- 
dient, but for what is true ; not for what may be regarded as most 



G 

practicable, but for what God lias sanctioned ; to inquire, not in the 
hope of being able to graft here or there, on the old stock, some new 
device or other, but simply to ascertain what is right, and, when this 
is ascertained, to spread such conviction without reference as yet to 
anything beyond the propagation of true thought, since in no other 
way but by the growth of true thought can the interests of godliness 
ever be permanently advanced. 

" All hasty procedures in what is called a practical direction are 
both unpractical and evil, since they commonly proceed either from 
impatience or self-will. Not till right ideas have made considerable 
way, not till an atmosphere has been created in which new practices 
will work healthily, is it either wise or right to attempt their intro- 
duction. ' Few persons, however,' — as has been well said by Mr. 
Matthew Arnold, in his admirable essay ' On the Functions of 
Criticism,' — ' and very few Englishmen indeed, can understand or 
appreciate such a course. The cry of the present day on all hands 
is constsuct. They who join in this cry forget that, for construc- 
tion, ' two powers must concur — the power of the man, and the 
power of the moment.' He who is destined in the long run to accom- 
plish most in the correction of the evils which now oppress us, is 
the man who is most willing to wait for suitable materials before he 
begins to build, or, if needful, to provide them for others ; who is 
able to hold a truth firmly without seeking to revolutionize the 
world with it ; who is content to handle it disinterestedly, and without 
reference to any party objects whatever ; who steadily refuses to lend 
himself to ulterior considerations; whose aim is first to know the best 
that can be known, and then to create, by the agency of this know- 
ledge, a current of true and fresh ideas ; the man, above all, who 
never ceases to protest with all his might against whatever makes truth 
subserve interests not its own ; whatever stifles it with practical 
considerations ; whatever makes practical ends the first thing, and true 
thought the second thing.' If we are honest in such a course, we shall 
neither be deterred from investigation, nor turn away in despondency, 
because the path we have to pursue maybe strewed with the wrecks or 
whitened by the bones of previous explorers." — (0. (7., pp. 174 — 175.) 

The random assertion : — 

" The work of evangelization was all done and finished in the 
days of the Apostles ; so to attempt to convert mankind must be 
synonymous with persecution." — (£. i?., p. 440.) 

" The savage is to seek civilization ; the convict and the thief are 
to be self-transformed ; the child to be self-educated ; the depraved 
self-governed. He proclaims the doctrine of ' limitation as opposed 
to universality.' This was the mark of Judaism — it is the mark of 



Christianity also : — ' We are Christians, you are not ; on the con- 
trary, we know yon well ; yon are lost souls — heirs of wrath ; but 
help yourselves, and God help you ; for us, we have no commission 
to pray for you, to preach to you, or to enlighten you ; out of your 
way we get ; you poor and wretched, sick and sore ; we belong to 
the order of the Levites, who beheld, we know, the distressed, and 
" passed by on the other side." ' This is the cheerful doctrine of 
this precious bijou." — (E. i?., p. 441.) 

The voice of tlie book : — 

" The glad tidings should be declared in every nation i for a wit- 
ness ' (Matt. xxiv. 14), the wall of partition between Jew and 
Gentile being now broken down, and all the world made one n 
Christ,"— (0. C, p. 8.)- 

" Whatever obligation may rest upon any of us— minister or lay- 
man — to spread the glad tidings of redemption, — and I should be 
the last to deny such an obligation, — it seems clear enough that 
this particular command, as given by our Lord, cannot be separated 
from the promise by which it was accompanied." — (0. C, p. 6..) 

" A believer will not only accept the Gospel, he will both live and 
teach it, even at a cost few in this generation seem disposed to pa3 r , 
— the cost of time now devoted to business. No man can, properly 
speaking, be a disciple of Christ who does not learn in order that he 
may teach ; — not perhaps publicly, for few are called to this duty, 
but at least individually and socially, — in the family, in limited 
circles, in private conversation, and this on the ground that, being a 
Christian, he is an cqipointed conservator of truth.'" — (0. C, p. 145.) 

"Being what we ought to be, there will be little danger of our 
failing to do what we are called upon to perform." — (0. C, p. 181.) 

" We shall be neither less earnest, nor, I trust, less successful in 
our endeavours to extend the knowledge of Christ, whether at home 
or abroad. But we shall proceed on somewhat different principles 
from those which now largely animate us. We shall sow the good 
seed more zealously than ever, but we shall be less restless about 
results. We shall learn not only when to speak, but when to be 
silent ; not only when to work, but when to refrain from working ; 
when, in short, to retire, that God may more manifestly come upon 
the scene."— (0. C, p. 89.) 

" An entire chapter (vii.) is, in addition, devoted to 'the Preacher 
of the Gospel,' a duty always regarded as ever pressing." 

The random assertion : — 

"Wretched — pre-eminently wretched — is all this narrow-minded- 
ness — this perpetually thinking of my soul— the sure sign of bad 



8 

spiritual health. The man who is ever talking of my stomach — 
* my digestion,' his conversation is not entertaining. This is what 
the writer means by the perfecting of the few — certainly, it will have 
one result, and it will be to him a gratifying note of praise ; ' Lord, 
I have been honoured to do very little good in the world ! I have 
had too many whims and notions, and crochets in my head for that ; 
but I am thankful that in these, my declining days, my powers are 
being used to prevent the good that others might do ! I am thankful 
that I infected old Wright with doubt, and he has taken off his 
guinea from the Missionary Society. I stopped young Wilson as he 
was starting off to persuade an unbeliever to think of Christ. I am 
glad I have quite put a spoke in Mary's teaching in the Sunday- 
school, and I believe we shall hear no more about Bible Societies in 
my neighbourhood. Come, come, these things make a man look up. 
I am not without some influence after all.' Does all this sound very 
severe ? but this is the very intention of the writer, and these are the 
things for which he might offer up his psalm of praise." 

"Missionary organizations he dreads and despises. 'Hath a 
nation changed its gods ' at any time after this fashion ? We believe 
never. The Gospel, like civilisation, is a light which must be carried 
to be known, It is amusing to read this dreaming apology for human 
indolence and inaction hiding itself beneath the subterfuge that the 
Christian, like the Israelite, is not to preach the truth but to live it — 
tobe an attractive, but notan aggressive, missionary." — (E.jR.,^. 441.) 

" The cry of the book before us : ' Let us sleep as do others.' Of 
the personal excellence of the author, although we have no know- 
ledge of him, we do not entertain a doubt ; but a more thorough- 
going piece of Antinomian heresy, we have not for a long time read 
or seen."— (E. E., p. 446.) 

The voice of the hook : — 

" The individual believer who listens to the voice of Christ must, 
at whatever cost, ' look not on his own things only, but on the things 
of others ; ' he must do unto others as he would that they, if he 
were in their circumstances, should do unto him ; he must put his 
shoulders under another's burdens, and he must bear (suffer by) 
the infirmities of the weak." — [0. C, p. 165.) 

" But let them not imagine that those who adopt other views, and 
who strive rather after the Christian perfection of the few than the 
general improvement of the many, therefore do nothing for society at 
large. This is not the fact ; for itis unquestionable that all the secondary 
influences of Christianity depend for their force much more on the 
influence of individual example than either on religious rites or 



public teaching. The performance of rites may be, and frequently 
is, but a cloak to hypocrisy. Teaching, however good, too generally 
resembles the action of the sun on desert plains, it falls on unpro- 
pitious soil. But the influence of example, if it acts at all, is not 
only in itself quickening and life-giving, it suggests the source from 
whence all that is good proceeds." — (0. C, p. 110.) 

What is really meant by " the perfecting of the few" 
cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the fol- 
lowing quotation from a letter written by Archbishop 
Whately to a young clergyman : — 

"Do not begin," he says, " by devoting your chief attention to 
those who seem to want reformation most : select the best informed 
and best disposed — improve these, and use them as your instruments 
in reforming their neighbours. If you had a promiscuous pile of 
wood to kindle, where would you apply your light, to the green sticks 
or to the dry ? " — (Life and Corr., vol. i.) 

The principle laid down by the Archbishop is pre- 
cisely that on which God governs the world ; and the 
non-recognition of it is one main cause of the darkness 
Yv T hich so often seems to rest on the dealings of Pro- 
vidence with mankind. 

The random assertion : — 

" We have remarked how easily the author leaps over Scripture, 
or breaks it up to serve his own purposes of interpretation when it- 
stands in his way. We could scarcely have expected that the denun- 
ciations against the prophets in Scripture, would be turned to account 
for the purpose of denouncing an order of ministers altogether." — 
(E. R., p. 444.) 

The voice of the book : — The false prophets are not 
turned to any such account. What is really said is 
this : — " There is nothing whatever to shew that these- 
(the schools of the prophets) were ever intended to be 
models for a New Testament ministry." 

Ministers are nowhere denounced. These are the- 
words of the author : — 

" I most heartily echo the statement that neither clergymen nor 
Dissenting ministers are, as a body, bv any means chargeable with 

a2 



10 

unfaithfulness. I believe that there never was a time when preachers 
were, as a rule, more earnest, more devoted, or better qualified for 
their work than they are now. 

" It may be, as has been suggested, that the minister often - ' wants 
faith ' in the possibility of elevating the character of his people. 
It may be that, ' when face to face with hundreds of souls whose 
failures and weaknesses and dangers appeal to him for help,' he 
sometimes fails, in the brief period that is allotted to him, ' to bring 
out the meaning of the Divine word ; ' to * carry it home as spirit 
and life ' to the consciences of his hearers ; to ' show a due regard 
to the range and comparative worth of motives ; ' to ' guide the 
formation and growth of Christian character ; ' to * treat with suffi- 
cient frequency and fulness and explicitness of the moral dispositions 
and habits,' or to give adequate directions for the use of recognized 
means of spiritual ' improvement.' But all this is merely to say 
that he cannot perform impossibilities, — that it is folly to ask for 
services which no human being, under the circumstances, can 
render."— (0. C, pp. 74, 75.) 

" What we really want in a pastor is, ' a man brought nearer than 
other men are at once to man and God.' The human heart, sa} r s a 
recent writer, ' desires one who is greater, purer, kinder, freer than 
itself, — one standing aloof from its conscious falseness, its self-con- 
fessed littleness. It must be a life having something sacrificial in 
it, — something which will ofttimes compel the man to put a space 
between his own soul and the souls upon which his desires and 
prayers are set ; he must free himself from every disturbing element, 
and be content to depart from his brethren in many things and at 
many seasons, so that he may abide with them for ever in a truer, 
deeper fellowship than any which is founded upon the conditions of 
an earthly amity. Unsecularity is the strength and glory of the 
Christian priesthood ; the agency they deal with is one which, like 
that of some great mechanic force, must work apart from that on 
which it is brought to bear ; its power is lost in conformity ; it lives 
in transformation — in renewal ; it is content to die in its own indi- 
vidual hopes and interests, so that, falling within the wide field of 
humanity, it may, in dying, bring forth much fruit.' 

" Such a man, relieved from the necessity of making sermons 
without end, and freed from all undue pressure of other obligations, 
whether philanthropic or religious, woidd have time, and would there- 
fore be expected to live much in quiet meditation ; to cultivate the 
' meekness of wisdom,' rather than brilliancy of talent ; to be, as 
well as to teach, what the Christian life requires of us all. 

" Chosen, as in this case he would be, not for his eloquence, his 
zeal, or his learning, so much as for his sanctified good sense, 



11 

his gentleness of character, his sweetness of disposition, his quick 
sympathy, his holiness of life, and his moral power over others, he 
would move among his people with the tenderness and love of the 
nurse who cherisheth her children, and would enter in no slight degree 
into the experience of that great apostle who could say to his con- 
verts, 'I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.'" — 
(0. C., pp. 101—103.) 

The random assertion : — 

" How comes our author into the possession of such an inhuman 
cree d? "—(£. R., p. 441.) 

" You are lost souls, heirs of wrath ; but help yourselves and God 
help you, for we have no commission." — {E. i?., p. 441.) 

" A more thorough-going piece of Antinomian heresy we have not 
for a long time read or seen." — (E. R., p. 446.) 

" Like all of his order he has, and seems as if he would demand 
in others, some scepticism in certain portions of revealed truth." — 
(E. R., p. 443.) 

The voice of the book : — As to the inhuman creed, 
" The salvation of all men cannot be dependent upon their hear- 
ing of Christ, and believing upon Him in this life ; for, as the 
apostle says, 'How can they hear without a preacher?'" — 

(o. a, P . 9.) 

" Let us rest, then, in the conviction that God's love to sinners is 
not limited by time ; that there is at least a possibility of forgive- 
ness in other worlds than this : that the lost here are not necessarily 
all lost hereafter ; that, consequently, the eternal happiness or misery 
of the human race hangs on something far better than the zeal or 
the devotion of weak and fallible mortals." — (0. C, p. 89.) 

" John Foster but expresses the most reasonable of judgments 
when he says that ' the ordinary orthodox view represents God 
as acting in a secondary or subordinate capacity to the human 
instruments He employs ; since it supposes Him practically to say 
to His Church, ' If you zealously labour for men's salvation, I will 
save them; otherwise not.' According to this, the final state of a 
large portion of the human race is placed at the disposal of a certain 
order of human beings, who might have effected their salvation if they 
would, — a conclusion which,' he adds, 'I think borders on impiety.' " 
— (0. C, p, 87.) 

The Antinomianism of the work may be judged of 
from the following : — 

" When any nation, as such, adopts Christianity, and professes to 



12 

govern itself by the law of Christ, compromise is inevitable, and 
the conventionalisms of a Christianized community necessarily take 
the place of the sterner and more rigid demands of the Master. 
But what the nation does as an organized whole is seldom surpassed 
by the individuals of which it is composed. The all but inevitable 
result, under such conditions, is the general lowering, in practical 
life, of a standard regarded as too high for the world as it is, 
although the original ideal of right as laid down in ' the Book ' may 
still be taught, and, in the abstract, reverenced. Nothing is more 
certain than that every one of us is likely to become ' better or 
worse morally, to advance or to retrograde socially, according to the 
standard of life which prevails around us— a standard which we are 
each individually helping to depress or to raise.' The difficulty of 
rising above this level is felt by every one who aspires after a truly 
noble and spiritual life." — (0. C, p. 43.) 

The Scepticism demanded appears, I suppose, in pas- 
sages like the following : — 

"I have said, and I am sure with truth, that the present age is 
an age of feeble convictions. But a disciple of Christ should be 
known quite as much by the strength of his belief as by the harmony 
of his conduct with the teachings of the Book by which he professes 
to be guided. 

"I do not mean to affirm that such a man must necessarily hold 
this or that theory of inspiration ; or that he must deny the existence 
of a human element in the Bible, without which it would not have 
been fit for its purpose, but with which is inevitably associated a 
certain amount of liability to error, in cases where verbal accuracy is 
not all important, and where, therefore, it has not been secured by 
verbal inspiration. But I do maintain that his convictions must be 
of a kind and character very far above all such considerations ; that 
they must be unfaltering and unassailable, — deep as the conscious- 
ness he has of his own responsibility to God, and indelible as the 
very instincts of his nature. 

" Evidences set forth in books, — however valuable and important 
in their place, — can never supply what is needed. The belief on 
which a man is to live must rest on experience ; on an experience 
not less real than that which guides him in daily life ; which gives him 
an unshaken confidence in the regularity of the laws of nature, and 
which leads him, day by day, to stake all that is dear to him on the 
stability of the material world. The first preachers of the Gospel 
triumphed in consequence of their unshaken confidence in the certainty 
of that geeat body of facts on which they rested all they taught. 



13 

They knew in whom they had believed, and by the force of that 
knowledge they conquered in an age which was even more sceptical 
than our own. This alone is, properly speaking, Faith." — 
(0. C, pp. 141, 142.) 

The way of handling Scripture called " narrow and 
miserable," is that which protests against any use of 
Bible texts which is inconsistent with their original 
meaning. Will the Editor, on this subject, listen for a 
moment to two men, by no means undistinguished 
either for learning or piety ? The one is Dr. John 
Pye Smith, who thus writes : — • 

" It may be asked, — Are we not at liberty to take striking passages 
of Scripture, and apply them to new and important purposes, upon 
a principle of accommodation ? Permit me to answer this question 
by asking another. Are we at liberty to put any meaning upon the 
Word of God different from its own proper, designed, and genuine 
sense, as ascertained by competent investigation? "■ — (Prin. of Int. 
1831.) 

The other is Archbishop Whately, who observes — 

" I think it dangerous and hardly reverent to apply any passage 
of Scripture to a purpose foreign from the context. If what we 
mean to recommend is taught in other passages of Scripture, tlwse 
ought to be the ones adduced ; if again, without being expressly 
taught, it is agreeable to Scripture and to reason, let it rest on those 
grounds. But a misapplication of a Scripture text, though it may 
be harmless in some particular instance, affords countenance to a 
most pernicious practice." — (Life and Cor., vol. i.) 

After the terrible exposure I have been obliged to 
make, it is to me peculiarly gratifying to be able to 
recognize anything truthful in an article which, at 
first sight, would seem to be from beginning to end, 
one lengthened lie. 

Let me say then at once that the Editor speaks truly 
of the author when he supposes him to allow that he has 
been " honoured to do very little good in the world.'* 
Nobody can be more sensible of this than himself, 
although he certainly does not give thanks on that 
account. 



14 

He is quite right also in affirming that ' Organ- 
ized Christianity ' is being "read in many circles in 
different parts of the kingdom," and that " it is just 
the book to satisfy the cravings of innumerable hosts 
growing up in our Churches." I cannot however 
agree with him in thinking such cravings to be 
* ■ morbid," or that they are felt only by persons " who 
eke out the shortcomings of their own inability by 
scoffing at, or arguing against all well-meant effort." 
lam sorry to find that in his opinion " innumerable 
hosts " of such scoffers are to be found in Congrega- 
tional churches. 

Eegarding the article as a whole, I can only say I 
pity the man who could write such trash, and still more 
the religious body that is thus represented in its " Con- 
gregational Eeview." Archbishop Whately somewhere 
says that " a genuine reviewer is a mixture of haughty 
self-conceit and flippant buffoonery — an ancient moun- 
tebank and a merry- andrew combined." Add to this 
the recklessness both of style and statement which 
characterizes the " penny-a-liner," and you will have 
some modern editors painted to the life. 

I wonder whether the august writer of the " "Eclectic " 
ever reads what he pens. Only in February last, — 
while disagreeing with its conclusions, — he says of this 
same " Organized Christianity" — 

" It is written by a thoughtful and well-read man. . . . "Let 
those who are minded to see what an intelligent, earnest man has to 
say on this subject, and how he calmly pours out his sense of disap- 
pointment over the failure of all the aggressive actions the Church 
has put forth, read this book." . . . " A doctrine like his was a 
gospel to us twenty-five or thirty years since, and we are quite aware 
of its side of spiritual strength, and that if every lover of and be- 
liever in the Saviour had an equally intense and earnest nature, 
< light of the world ' and ' salt of the earth ' believers would assu- 
redly be." (E. R., Feb., 1866, p. 185-6.) 



i 



15 

I am afraid the fact is, that up to this hour he is 
quite ignorant of the contents of the book he has 
twice undertaken to review. But if so, where is his 
conscience ? Where also, I might ask, is the conscience 
of the religious public in relation to transgressions of 
this character ? None are so little thought of ; none 
are so readily condoned ; yet none are so demoralizing ; 
none so likely to deprave the moral sentiment of the 
Christian community. How fearfully low, then, must 
the state of public opinion in the religious world be- 
in relation to matters of this kind, when such gross 
deviations from right, excite no remark beyond perhaps 
an expression of surprize that any one should think it 
worth while to notice them. 

But enough of this wretched production. I gladly 
turn from its absurdities to address a few words to the 
ministers of that particular body to which the Editor 
belongs. Among them are. not a few whom lam proud to 
number amongst my best friends, and a rather extended 
acquaintance with others has led me to think and speak 
of them generally as men who, in not a few points, are 
far ahead of the laity in their desires for the edification 
of the flock. 

In relation to " Organized Christianity," some of them 
have not hesitated to bear witness to ' ' its unselfish and 
disinterested motives, to its purity of aim, and to the 
justness of much that it contains." Others have told 
me how much they " sympathize with, and appreciate 
its broad, catholic, and unsectarian spirit," and some 
I know, are even now endeavouring, with a wise 
cautiousness, to test its suggestions by experience. 

To such — to all, indeed, I am anxious to state as 
simply as may be, what I aim at, and the means by which 
I seek the accomplishment of that which I desire to 
see effected. 



16 

Ten years ago, I ventured to say, in a little Look now 
all but out of print,* that — 

"In an age and country like our own, the Church and the world 
act and re-act on each other, with unusual rapidity and force. From 
the Church, the world takes both its notions of religion, and its 
basis of morality. By the Church its manners are chastened, its 
laws modified, its tone elevated, and its opinions in many respects 
formed and guided. 

"From the World, on the other hand, the Church receives status, 
money, and social respect. By the World, its enthusiasm is more 
or less checked, its ideal of right somewhat lowered, its standard of 
practical godliness kept down, 

"Mutually influencing each other in this friendly spirit, antagonism 
in time altogether ceases ; something like compromise takes place ; 
reviling is exchanged for regard ; and the lion and the lamb ' lie 
down ' together so peacefully, that ' a little child ' might ' lead 
them.' Hand in hand, the old opponents walk together, mutually 
rejoicing in the advance of civilization, the humanizing of society, 
the triumphs of science, the binding together of nations, the spread 
of commerce, and the coming of that golden age when, witnessing 
the fulfilment alike of heathen and of Jewish prophecy, the world 
shall at length become the dwelling-place of a happy and united 
brotherhood. 

" Such are the facts of the case. Of course there is a shady side 
to the picture, for sin and misery, vice and want, abound as much as 
ever, and men generally are too restless to be happy. But since 
everything in this world has its counterbalance, why should we dwell 
on that which only produces sadness ? So men reason." 

That, to some extent, this state of things is the 
natural and necessary result of the spread of Chris- 
tianity cannot be denied. 

" A Christian, in the days of the Apostles, differed from other 
men outwardly, as much as inwardly. He was, commonly, either a 
wanderer or an outcast ; for the life that was around him, whether 
private or social or public, involved, at every turn, practices which 
were in themselves absolutely corrupting or blasphemous. Bat the 
reverse of all this is the case now, the distinction in question being 
almost entirely inward. 

* " ' The Spirit of Truth,' a Supplement to ' The Comforter,' " by 
Delta. 



17 

" A Christian, in the present day, is simply one who makes daily 
war within, against evils to which others willingly submit ; and in 
him, as has been beautifully said, we may view ' the picture of a 
man struggling with effect against his earth-born propensities, and. 
yet hateful to himself for the very existence of them, — holier than 
any of the people around him, and yet humbler than them all, — 
realizing, from time to time, a positive increase to the grace and 
excellency of his character, and yet becoming more tenderly con* 
scious every day of its remaining deformities, — gradually expanding 
in attainment, as well as in desire, towards the light and the liberty 
of heaven, and yet groaning under a yoke, from which death alone 
will fully emancipate him.' 

"But if things as they are, may be, in some degree, regarded as of 
God, they are not wholly so. So far as the world is benefited, 
however indirectly, by the influence of the Church, God is well 
pleased ; but so far as the Church is cooled in its zeal, or its ideal 
of good lowered, or the range of its principles limited by its inter- 
course with the World, so far it is disloyal to its Lord, and a traitor 
to its trust." 

We ask then, lias the standard of godliness as. a fact 
been lowered in consequence of the extension of a reli- 
gious profession ? It is not for me to decide this grave 
question. I can only state what, right or wrong, is the 
general opinion of Christianized society. 

" There can be no question whatever, that if it were possible to 
stand in Cheapside, and to compel every passer-by, one by one, to 
give, to the best of his belief, a distinct and straightforward answer 
to this inquiry, — " Do you perceive, or do you believe, that there is 
any perceptible difference in the conduct of Christian persons, as com- 
pared with that of others, in the dealings of the mart, the Stock 
Exchange, the share market, the counting-house, the warehouse, and 
the shop ? Are they as a class, supposed to be less greedy of gain, 
more honourable, more truthful, more disinterested than others ? the 
all but universal answer would be — No ! 

" If employers of labour were, in like terms, required to state the 
particulars in which Christian servants, male or female, high or low 
in rank, differed from worldly ones, it is equally certain that their 
reply, with a few striking exceptions, would be, ' There is no diffe- 
rence at all.' 

" And if, leaving both these classes, literary men, — editors of 
journals, reviews, magazines,— were in turn also desired to state 



18 

their conscientious belief, whether religious newspapers and periodicals 
were or were not, as a whole, distinguished by greater candour, a 
wider charity, more truthfulness in statement, more conscientious- 
ness in quotation, a greater absence of anything like pandering to 
the interests of party or the unreasonableness of prejudice, than 
secular journals ? it cannot be doubted, that with one voice, they 
would express their inability to discover any such distinction." 

The fact is, the relative position of the parties has 
-changed. 

" The advance of the one has not been accompanied by corres- 
ponding advance in the other, — things necessarily assume a new 
aspect, and the following alternative seems to present itself, — Either 
the distinction between the Church and the World, of which we talk 
so much, will soon become altogether fictitious, or, some great onward 
movement must again place the Church on higher ground, and 
once more make it, in the eyes of all men, 'a city set on an 

HILL. ' 

" But how is this to be brought about ? 

" Not, certainly, as many excellent Churchmen have thought, by 
the revival of mediaeval devotion, practices, or claims. Not, assu- 
redly, as others, equally devoted, whether in or out of the Establish- 
ment, have hoped, by showers of Divine grace, falling, in answer to 
our prayers, upon churches and missions, whether at home or abroad ; 
for both these expectations proceed on the belief, that existing views 
and agencies are, unquestionably, Divine in their character, and that, 
therefore, the mechanism of Earth, however feeble and defective, is 
destined, ere long, to be moved by nothing less than the omnipotence 
of Heaven." 

"A few more words in conclusion, and then these imperfect, 
though by no means hasty thoughts, shall be cast like ' bread upon 
the waters,' in the firm belief that, whether neglected or scorned now, 
they will be found, and do their work, ' after many days.' 

" The visible unity of the Church in all important matters, and 
the visible moral elevation of Christians as a body, over those by 
whom they are surrounded, are the conditions under which alone true 
Christianity can advance in the world. But how these great bless- 
ings are to be secured, it is hard to say : it is the problem that this 
age or the next must solve, and it may be that, in either case, the 
solution will involve much suffering. Perhaps it is impossible that 
Christians should unite, before God has scattered them, or that the 
Church should be ?*e-formed, before God has broken it up. Perhaps 
in no other way is it practicable, to make men feel and act upon the 



19 

conviction, that creeds are not Christianity, and that Scripture, as an 
authority, stands alone. Perhaps, never till they are deprived of 
Christian ordinances, will they he ahle to perceive their true meaning 
and value ; to understand how it comes to pass, that the same preach- 
ing, which is needful for the feeble, ' enfeebles the strong ; ' that 
what are called 'religious advantages,' may easily become in practice 
great and fatal disadvantages, — so that many who, but for these things, 
would long since have been teachers of others, still ' need to be 
taught the first principles of the oracles of God ; ' that men may 
have the Bible in their hands, and yet cherish fraudulent designs 
in their hearts ; that banks may be opened with prayer, and yet end 
in gigantic swindling : and that all this may arise, from the habitual 
separation, in Christian society, of doctrinal truth and moral truth, — 
a distinction quite unknown to the Apostles, — leading, as it invariably 
does, to the exaltation of the one, as the root of all goodness, and the 
consequent depression of the other, as mere secular virtue, which is 
sure to follow the reception of the Gospel." 

I make these quotations in order to shew that, 
whatever may be the merits or demerits of any of my 
opinions, that which I have advanced has at least been 
well considered and carefully weighed ; that it is idle to 
say my remarks spring from " a spirit of impatience 
with quiet labour ; " and wicked to affirm that " the very 
intention of the writer " is to " pi'event" sinners from 
being brought to Christ ; to discourage the instruction 
of the young ; or to induce men to withdraw their sub- 
scriptions from any Missionary Society whatever." — 
(E. B., p. 442.)* 

In " Organized Christianity" the object I have in 
view is thus stated : — 

" To form and to fix a higher Christian ideal than now prevails ; 
to rescue the peculiar moralities of the Gospel from the convention- 
alisms which now choke them, and to create and sustain within the 
Christian body a public opinion of its own, — a judgment of things 

* The author does not believe that anything he has ever written has 
this tendency. He has no wish to speak of himself, but he may perhaps 
be permitted to say that his own subscriptions to Missionary Societies 
or to any other organization for spreading the Gospel have not been 
diminished in consequence of the views he has been led to adopt. 



. 20 

which the world, however Christianized, will never accept, but which 
is nevertheless in strict accordance with the teaching of the Lord. — 

(o. a, P . 171.) 

" The truth is, whether we recognize it or not, that the greater 
part of the morality practised day by day by all classes is purely 
conventional. Yfe all shrink from adopting any course which seems 
to condemn others ; sometimes, like religious slave- owners, playing 
our pleasant deceptions off in the face of the plainest truths, and 
always forgetful that we are using an instrument subtle enough and 
elastic enough to accommodate practical life to any standard which 
may, at any period, happen to prevail in Christianized society. Thus 
it is man lowers the heavenly to the earthly ; and, whether a 
preacher or a hearer, too often contrives to depress the Divine law 
to that which he considers the absolute requirements of ordinary life. 

" The scepticism of the eighteenth century sprang up in a soil of 
this character ; that of the nineteenth, destined, I fear, to prove 
eventually more desolating than its predecessor, because connected 
with far more activity of mind, and a deeper earnestness in relation to 
life and its responsibilities, can only be checked by an end being put 
to the strange contrasts between words and things which now so per- 
plex men."— (O. C, pp. 167—108.) 

The following remarks may be taken for what they 
are worth. No man, at all events, will be the Yforse 
for pondering them. 

" The Nonconformist bodies, originating for the most part in seces- 
sion from the national establishment, and professing to realize a 
higher and purer communion, — untrammelled by the State, and free 
to act according to the dictates of conscience, — have no hindrance 
to contend with beyond that which arises from their own public opi- 
nion leading them to attempt, so far as their ability extends , the 
very same ivorJc which the Church of England is ever trying to do, 
viz,, to Christianize the community, by promoting a mixed worship, 
and by spreading as far as they can the knowledge of God, through 
public preaching, the visitation of the poor, and such other means as 
may seem likely to answer the end. Their main object, indeed, 
seems to be to prove that they can do this work belter than the 
Church of England ; that voluntary societies are for Christian pur- 
poses preferable to endowed agencies ; that the support of the State 
in such work is unfavourable to purity, to freedom, and to vigour. 

" But is this their calling of Crod ? Has it not led, and is it not 
sure to lead, just in proportion as equality makes way, to all the evils 
that beset established communions ? to the recognition of a profes- 



21 

sional order of religious teachers, and to the love of power and of 
social and political influence, so far as it can be obtained, either by 
popular speech, or by ecclesiastical organization ? I think it doss, 
and must continue to do so -while human nature is unchanged. Is 
not this tendency increasingly visible in rivalries of various kinds ? 
in Gothic buildings, in expensive edifices, in steeples, in desires for 
liturgical services, in chants, in artistic singing, in the use of organs, 
in ritualistic tastes, in decorations, in altar-cloths over communion 
tables, and in a growing dislike to, and contempt for, all notions that 
are anti-clerical ?—(0. C., pp. 187—188.) 

The means by which the desired end, — the elevation 
of the Christian body, — is most likely to be accom- 
plished must, of course, be open to discussion. My 
own conviction is that preaching (using that word in 
its modern and technical sense) cannot do more than 
it has clone ; that the press will be found equally 
powerless ; that something more, and something diffe- 
rent from that which now is, has become absolutely 
essential. But to advocate innovation is, just as much 
among Dissenters as among others, to breast at once 
obloquy and opposition, popular prejudice, and re- 
proach from all those who consider that institutions 
which they regard as sacred may perchance be endan- 
gered or overturned. Of such I have no hope ; — ■ 
" their carcases must fall in the wilderness;" but the 
rising generation may perhaps " be kept untainted, 
and brought into a good land."* 

I am far, however, from wishing to dogmatize on a 
subject so beset with difficulties. I simply throw out 
the following suggestions for the consideration of all 
whom they may concern. 

" Changes are clearly coming over us, the direction and extent 
of which few care to contemplate ; and perhaps nothing now can 
stay their course. That preaching, from some cause or other, is 
going down in public estimation must, I fear, be admitted. That in 



* Archbishop Whately. 



22 

exactly the same proportion a love of ritualism is rising up seems 
little less certain. Nor can it be otherwise if our existing church 
and chapel system is light in principle ; * for a mixed crowd or con- 
gregation can only be kept together and interested in one of two 
ways — either by oratory or by ritualism. If preaching fall into dis- 
repute, nothing will retain the multitude but some assthetic form of 
worship. If the ear be not regaled, the eye must be attracted. If 
the intellect be not addressed, the senses must. 

" I am not, of course, imagining that preaching will, in any case, be 
given up, for even in the Eomish Church it is a wonderful element 
of power. I am merely intimating my belief that the tendency of the 
time is to get away from the Presbyterian idea, which regards the 
church as mainly, if not exclusively, a place of theological instruc- 
tion ; and to get nearer to the Anglican idea, which regards the 
pulpit as altogether subordinate to the altar. As a consequence, while 
what is popularly, although inappropriately, called Puseyism spreads 
among Episcopalians, the opinion deepens and widens among Non- 
conformists, that in public services more 'prominence should be 
given to the worship of the Church, and less to its teaching. 

" I do not wonder at this. It but expresses the natural want of 
many spiritually minded Christians. But let it not be forgotten, 
that to have spiritual worship you must have spiritual worshippers ; 
that to the outside world, to the formal and the irreligious, who form 
so large a part of ordinary congregations, the strengthening of the 
worshipping element means the exaltation of ritualism, and nothing 
else. 

"What, then, must we do? Our choice clearly lies between 
moving forward on the line so many are now following, or stepping 
backward to an extent which will altogether change our position in the 
eye of the world, and call for no little sacrifice and self-denial. 

" This, however, is the path I invite the Nonconformists of England 
to tread, and to tread it boldly, without distinction of sect or party, 
regardless of trust-deeds, of denominational interests, of property, of 
everything that keeps real Christians apart from each other ; regardless, 



* At the recent meeting of the Baptist Union, the Rev. J. H. Hinton 
is said by the Freeman and other papers to have " denounced public wor- 
ship as a solecism in thought and an hypocrisy in act." He said, "there 
was not an example of public worship in the whole Bible." He thought 
"public worship one of the great misfortunes of the age, and if there was 
one thing more offensive than another, it was the amount of hypocrisy 
presented in so called public worshipping services." These remarks, 
however startling, may serve to throw light on some observations made in 
* £ Organized Christianity," chapter vii. , on " the Preacher and the Gospel." 



too, of tlieologicical opinions, whether right or wrong ; of the views of 
Baptists or Pcedobaptists, of Calvinists or teninians, regardless of 
all creeds and confessions save one — ' Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God ;' merging all other considerations in the one car- 
dinal qualification for fellowship — faith in the Divine Redeemer^ 
and earnest desire to know and do His will. Then would the song, 
' Thou art the King of Glory, Christ ! ' rise to heaven with new 
acceptance, since it would swallow up every other cry, and embody 
in its capacious bosom the spoils of the theological universe. 

" Nothing is more certain than that until the Church awakes to 
judgment of itself, will secessions, greater or smaller, originating in 
felt wants, and therefore drawing in their wake some of the best, the 
most single-hearted, and the most godly amongst us, from time to 
time first witness against that which is wrong, and then wither by 
becoming wrong in the very act of witness ; wither, by becoming; 
narrow, bigoted, and uncharitable, first claiming the right of judging 
those who differ from them, and then exercising the right in still 
fiercer judgments on one another. 

" One word more and I have done. Is there a Christian man? 
worthy of the name, who knows nothing of that irrepressible sadness 
which so often steals over the spirit as we become more and more 
conscious how far, as individuals, we fall short of that high calling; 
which is presented to us alike in Scripture and in the depths of our 
own consciousness ? Is there one who would not reject, almost with 
indignation, the pretence that our noblest aspirations are the mere 
offspring of discontent — that to soar above the earth is vain — that 
to strive after perfection is to weary oneself for nought ? 

" Why, then, should such persons think they do well to be angry, 
when the same order of thought is confronted with the Church and 
its institutions ? Why should men welcome the suggestion that to 
doubt its condition is but to indicate a cynical spirit — to be a fault- 
finder, dissatisfied, unthankful ? If it be not right to take compla- 
cency in what we individually are, is it otherwise than unlawful to 
glorify what we call " the Church," by which I mean that partWffiai- 
ecclesiastical organization or institution which we most favour ? Is 
it permissible to magnify its worth, to exaggerate its value, to be so 
jealous regarding it, as on no account to allow it to be touched ? Is 
it right to regard it as a thing too sacred to be questioned, too 
heavenly to be reformed ? Here, too, if we will believe it, there is. 
room for a Divine sadness." — (0. C, pp. 188 — 192.) 

I have not attempted to conceal my belief that any 
advance in the direction I advocate supposes a willing- 



24 

ness on the part of Christian fellowships to risk much 
in the way of income, popularity, and standing in the 
world. 

" It supposes more than willingness on the part of pastors to resign 
exclusive privilege, and to place themselves on a level with their 
brethren ; for unless they diligently sought out and encouraged 
suitable persons to unite with them in teachiDg ; unless they pressed 
the performance of the duty as a high Christian obligation ; unless 
they themselves habitually kept as much as possible in the back- 
ground ; unless, in short, they earnestly desired the change, and 
were led to perceive that whatever trials might attend its introduc- 
tion it would ultimately be as great a blessing to themselves as to 
their people, all attempts to establish it must end in failure. 

" Let obstacles, however, be what they may, it must not be for- 
gotten, as Vinet well puts it, that ' we can never fairly charge to a 
principle the difficulties and hindrances that attend a return to that 
principle if it has been long mistaken or forgotten ; or if the con- 
trary principle, organized long ago in society, has penetrated all its 
parts and modified all its elements.' " — CO. C, p. 172.) 



THE END. 



TJ^WIN BROTHERS, GRESHAM STEAM PRESS, BUCELERSBURY. E.C. 

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